December 03, 2009

Terror-tied ISNA official teaching troops at Ft Hood about to deploy to Afghanistan, wrote of "preemptive strikes" against Islam's enemies(UPDATED) It gets worse

I was contacted today by an official in the military anti-terrorism community who was extremely upset that a top official for the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) was conducting classes at Ft. Hood on Islam to troops about to deploy to Afghanistan. The individual in question, Louay Safi, actively promotes the ideology employed by Ft Hood killer Maj. Nidal Hasan, and has been caught on FBI wiretaps communicating with terrorist leaders operating in the US. Safi has also written a defense of "preemptive strikes" against Islam's enemies, such as that carried out by Maj. Hasan. (Update: It seems that Robert Spencer received the same report about Safi's appearance at Ft Hood today.)

Amazingly, at around 6:00pm this evening, Safi presented a check to the families of those killed less than a month ago in the Ft. Hood massacre.

My source told me: "This is nothing short of blood money. This is criminal and the Ft. Hood base commander should be fired right now."

Who is Louay Safi? He has long been on the radar of federal law enforcement. Back in 2003, Safi was named in a FBI affidavit submitted to the court that approved a search warrant of the now-closed Graduate School of Islamic Social Sciences, which trained and approved the initial Muslim military chaplains.

A glimpse of his connections to Islamic terrorists operating inside the US can be seen in a phone conversation recorded by the FBI he had with Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami al-Arian. The Investigative Project describes the call:

In a recorded 1995 telephone call, Al-Arian and Louay Safi discuss President Clinton's new executive order prohibiting financial transactions with terrorist groups including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Safi, an officer with the Islamic Society of North America and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (currently undergoing its own investigation for terrorist financing and ties to the Muslim Brotherhood), wanted to know if this affected Al-Arian.

Al-Arian dismissed the order as empty political posturing:

Al-Arian: By God the Almighty, when he lists names like Abu Nidal and Fathi Shiqaqi and Ahmad Yassin … Does Ahmad Yassin have accounts here? What is this nonsense?

Safi is a Syrian-born author who advocates Muslim American rights through his directorship of ISNA's Leadership Development Center. He advocates direct talks between Washington and Iran's leaders. He has spoken out against various law enforcement raids on Islamic centers.

In a 2003 publication, "Peace and the Limits of War," Safi wrote, "The war against the apostates [non-believers of Islam] is carried out not to force them to accept Islam, but to enforce the Islamic law and maintain order."

He also wrote, "It is up to the Muslim leadership to assess the situation and weigh the circumstances as well as the capacity of the Muslim community before deciding the appropriate type of jihad. At one stage, Muslims may find that jihad, through persuasion or peaceful resistance, is the best and most effective method to achieve just peace."

Again, this guy is teaching our soldiers on Islam at Ft. Hood as they are set to deploy to Afghanistan. Maj. Hasan was merely following Safi's dictates in consulting with his former imam Anwar al-Aulaqi in assessing the situation and deciding on the appropriate type of jihad. And Hasan could have easily relied on Safi's rulings on Islamic warfare in preparing for his attack. On page 29 of his "Peace and the Limits of War", Safi outlines the Islamic doctrine of a preemptive strike:

The clear-cut case of foreign aggression is a military attack on the Islamic state or its allies. The Muslims, however, are not obliged to wait until the enemies launch their attack, before responding. Rather, the Islamic state can initiate war and carry out a preemptive strike if the Muslim authorities become convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the enemy is mobilizing its forces and is about to carry out an offensive, or if a state of war already exists between the Islamic state and its adversaries."

Can the Islamic justifications behind Maj. Hasan's murderous attack be made more clear? And now Safi goes to the very scene of the crime to check out his ideological handywork at the invitation of military brass. Guys like Louay Safi are the problem, not the solution. Whomever brought him to Ft. Hood should be court martialed and drummed out of the military in shame.

In conclusion, where might have Maj. Hasan arrived at the conclusion that the war on terror was really a war on Islam as he expressed in his now-infamous Power Point presentation? Who knows, but if you want to catch Louay Safi in all his unedited glory, check out his article, "Turning the War on Terror into a War on Islam".

UPDATE: It gets worse. Indianapolis TV station WTHR reported right after the shooting that Safi had just returned from Ft Hood when the massacre happened and issued a condemnation of the killer, who was merely acting on Safi's doctrine of "preemptive strikes":

When shots rang out at Fort Hood last Thursday, Dr. Louay Safi was just wrapping up deployment training on Islam for soldiers at Fort Bliss, Texas. Safi is the Director of Communications and Leadership Development at The Islamic Society of North America in Plainfield.

Within hours of the shooting, he was condemning a brother of the Muslim faith, the alleged trigger man Army Major Nidel Malik Hasan.

"This is a betrayal, something that I don't think any religion or any person of honor would really look at other than a betrayal and crime. What he did doesn't represent our faith," Safi told Eyewitness News from the Plainfield Mosque.

Once again, Safi's own book outlines the Islamic doctrine of "preemptive strikes" when any enemy of Islam (aka "America") "is mobilizing its forces and is about to carry out an offensive." Hasan consulted with Anwar al-Aulaqi (aka "Islamic authorities") according to Safi's instruction. Is Louay Safi playing both sides of the fence like his old friend, convicted Al-Qaeda bagman Aburahman Alamoudi, who established the DOD's Islamic chaplaincy program?

WTHR also reported that ISNA started a donation drive to assist the families of the Ft Hood massacre. This is much like Al-Qaeda raising money for the victims of 9/11. Could this possibly get any worse? Dare I ask?